The Biden-Harris administration is moving more military assets, including bombers, to the Middle East as the US comes closer to becoming directly involved in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Iran, the Daily Wire reported Saturday.
The Defense Department will move “additional ballistic missile defense destroyers, fighter squadron and tanker aircraft, and several U.S. Air Force B-52 long-range strike bombers to the region.” The additional military hardware ix expected to arrive in-theater as the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group prepares to depart.
“These deployments build on the recent decision to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system to Israel as well as DoD’s sustained Amphibious Ready Group Marine Expeditionary Unit (ARG/MEU) posture in the Eastern Mediterranean,” a statement said. Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said that the added firepower will assert the “flexible nature of U.S. global defense posture and U.S. capability to deploy world-wide on short notice to meet evolving national security threats.”
The augmentation of US forces comes after Iran promised to retaliate against recent Israeli airstrikes. According to a report in The New York Times, Israel produced significant damage in its attack, destroying vital air defense systems that provide security for oil and petrochemical refineries and damaging a large gas field.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said his country is not seeking a war but it reserves the right to retaliate “appropriately” to Israel’s offensive. “We do not seek war but we will defend the rights of our nation and country,” Pezeshkian said during a Sunday cabinet meeting. He added: “We will give an appropriate response to the aggression of the Zionist regime,” The Guardian reported.
Gholamhossein Mohammadi Golpayegani, head of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s office, said that Iran would deliver a “fierce, tooth-breaking response,” according to the Daily Wire.
Any Iranian response will provoke another Israeli retaliation, further heightening the risks of regional war. The US and Russia are both concerned that the chronic military strikes and counter-strikes in the region could foment a full-scale war between Israel and all of its adversaries.
“We hit its underbelly,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “The boastful talk by the Iranian regime’s heads cannot conceal and compensate for the fact that Israel now has greater freedom to operate in Iran than ever before.”
It remains to be seen whether Israel's “appropriate” refers to direct military action, indirect assistance to its militant armies like Hezbollah or a direct assault.
